Marina and Bobby Van in Bridgehampton in 1977. Newsday File Photo
By Laura Rivera
laura.rivera@newsday.com
Bobby Van, the eponymous founder of the Bridgehampton bar that became a hub for a generation of literati, died Tuesday in Huntington, his family said. He was 64.
Van, a pianist who entertained artists and writers like Truman Capote and Willie Morris in the bar and restaurant he opened in 1969, had hit upon hard times in recent years, working as a taxi driver and undergoing dialysis for a failing kidney, said Marina Van, his ex-wife.
He died of a staph infection he contracted at a hospital, his ex-wife said.
Downplaying reports of Van's hard-partying ways, she described him as a "social drinker" and said he did not use cocaine. According to her, Van had a kidney removed in the early 1970s due to a birth defect.
During the 1970s, Bobby Van built a base of loyal patrons from the painters, authors, and intellectuals who lived and worked around the Hamptons. Through a haze of smoke and light cast from Tiffany lamps, Marina recalled, Van played standards by George Gershwin and Cole Porter, as well as the oft-requested "Mountain Greenery."
"He was a great, great pianist -- that was the charm of the restaurant and the bar," Marina, of Sag Harbor, said. "I got to meet people I never would have known, like Truman Capote and Irwin Shaw and Willie Morris and James Jones, all because of Bobby and this wonderful little gin mill he brought together."
The couple, who married in 1975, sold the business in 1985 and divorced shortly thereafter, she said. It subsequently became the top-rated Bobby Van's Steakhouse, with restaurants in Manhattan and Washington, DC.
Van, a graduate of Juilliard, grew up in Garden City.
He is survived by two brothers, Richard and David Vanvelsor, and many nieces and nephews.
A private funeral for Van will be held this week, and a memorial service is planned for next spring.